“I don’t believe in guilty pleasures, I only believe in pleasures. People who call reading detective fiction or eating dessert a guilty pleasure make me want to puke. Pedophilia is a pleasure a person should have guilt about. Not chocolate.”

I’m hoping that introducing this confession with a quote from someone as admittedly highbrow as Ira Glass will somehow mitigate the silliness of what I’m about to admit to.

You see, I have this thing I like, and I’m embarrassed about liking it. And for some reason I’m feeling the need to let you all know about it today.

Not Cheetos. I do indeed like them, but that’s only a little embarrassing. And nope, it’s nothing as innocuous as eating dessert.

It does have to do with the outdoors, so it is – somewhat – related to the subject of this blog.

I like to watch Finding Bigfoot on Animal Planet.

There. It’s out.

So what’s that about? I mean, I’m a person who knows who Ira Glass is. I listen to This American Life every week. When Ira Glass asked his listeners to lobby our local theaters to show “Sleepwalk with Me”, I jumped right in and e-mailed our local art theater. So I’m smart, right?

Right?

The fact is, there are quite a few things I just love about this show.

The best has got be that they get to say at least twenty times in an hour that the place they’re searching is “squatchy.” “Squatchy” is one great word, and it’s become part of my internal dialogue whenever I’m out in the woods. Just this morning I walked through a spot that was particularly “squatchy”:

See? Definitely Squatchy.

They are also prone to saying wonderful things like, “I do think there’s a squatch in these woods.”

I do think there’s a squatch in these woods, too…

Next, the four bigfoot “investigators” have one of the best jobs in the world. They get to travel around the country, meeting with folks who have swell bigfoot stories, and – the best part – they get to tramp around in the woods using neat equipment like thermal imagers and night vision binoculars looking for a wild animal. They even get to do bigfoot howls to try and get a response.

I’m particularly attached to one of the guys – a huge guy nicknamed “Bobo” who they often use as a stand-in sasquatch when they need to re-enact a witness’s bigfoot encounter. Of course, Bobo is not as big as a real bigfoot, but he’s a tall and husky guy, with endearing fuzzy long hair that is always a mess. Bobo can do a really convincing howl, as well.

See? I really do watch this show.

My favorite show so far has to be one where Bobo spends the night alone in the woods, and cooks up a batch of bacon to lure in a bigfoot, ” ’cause Squatches love bacon.” Is that not a great job, or what? Spending the night in a squatchy place and cooking bacon?

I even know that a new season is starting November 11. I don’t know that about any other show.

19 Responses to OK Ira Glass, This is Not a Guilty Pleasure. But it’s Still Embarrassing.

We all have our “guilty pleasures,” especially when it comes to TV. Remember the Bigfoot movie that came out in the 70’s? I went to a matinee when I was a kid and it was a huge scream fest. I loved it! Sometimes I like to watch shows about aliens and ghosts. I think it’s the kid in us, listening to ghost stories around the campfire.